Holiday Food Fail

Picture by: dunno source. Submitted by: Hans Gruber via Fail Uploader

Taken in St Ives, Cornwall. Sign put up by local Council

The Gull’s Dinner
16 August 2009
Montauk, NY

Lake Como.

Posted for Watery Wednesday

Gender: Feminine
Origin: Latvian
Meaning: “gull; seagull.”
Lat (KYE-yah).

The name comes directly from the Latvian word for sea-gull, coincidentally, it is also used in Finland as a form of Katherine. As of 2008, there were 97 registered Kaijas in Latvia. Its designated name-day in Latvia is November 12.

What a gorgeous day! Started out dark and rainy but by this afternoon, temps neared 70 degrees (in November?) and skies were clear. An exceptional day for a walk on the beach!

I began photographing the waves crashing onto the shoreline but then turned to watching the seagulls as they flew low over the water. The scene couldn’t have been more perfect to test out my panning skills (i.e., tracking a moving subject with the camera lens which results in a relatively sharp subject against a blurred background).

This technique takes some practice but I was pretty pleased with this particular shot. Most of the bird is tack sharp with just a bit of vertical motion in the wings. Everything else is horizontally blurred, giving the shot a feeling of motion and speed (which is great for a bird in flight).

"Solo Flight" (Seagull) Nikon D300, 70mm, F/16, 1/320s, -0.7EV, ISO 400

I’ll need to keep practicing – perhaps with slower shutter speeds to emphasize the blur more – but overall, no complaints on the day or the shot!

http://www.weareenfantterrible.com/ ça déchire, même en allemand

I guess it is difficult  for me to get out whilst it is sunny outside now it is winter and the night falls so early (and I get up well late, take my time living…). Anyway on a walk out at La Villette with Amit I found myself stuck with a 200ISO film in my camera and the night already falling… So I tried pushing it to 400ISO. This is all new to me since I never tried doing this before. I developed the film with some standard Rodinal and left it a bit longer. God I was scared of what I would get… But in the end I think it is one of my best roll for a long time. Youpie !

P.S. : I might just not be so fussy about my pictures today…

P.P.S. : As for my arty research not much going on this side, just reading bits and pieces here and there…

~~~

Like pretty much every Sunday, it was sunny today! I didn’t get a picture of the sun today but you’ll just have to believe me! I want to try and take a picture of the sunny Sundays every week, to see how often it really is sunny!

Last Sunday, Adam and I went to Presque Isle beach in Erie Pa. That was a ton of fun! He woke up that morning and mentioned the idea to go out there. I wasn’t sure if he was serious, (since it’s a 2hour drive) but I took him up on the offer! On the way, we stopped to look at some antique stores which are always fun and interesting to see what you can find. We went to the school house one. I didn’t want to stay too long, since it was such a beautiful day and it was quite chilly inside the antique shop.

We reached the beach, finding a spot to park near the far end near the lighthouse. The air was cool and a little windy, but the sun was shining! It was warm and beautiful out. There were plenty of people out at Presque isle, enjoying the fall day at the beach. We walked along the beach, Adam was collecting rocks with a plan to drill a hole into, to make a necklace possibly. I was a little antsy at first, maybe since we rode in the car for 2hours, and I wanted to walk around. Round the corner we saw a lighthouse from I believe the 1800s. I love lighthouses, they are so enchanting, and mysterious to me. I think this is the area Adam might have gotten bitten by a tic, which he found on him the next day. He took care of it, and I hope he’s ok.

PresqueIsle_Lighthouse

We continued walking after the lighthouse. Finding many things, and enjoying the day together. They whole day was great! The look and feel of the beach reminded me of the environment from “Where the Wild Things Are”, the movie. The color of the sky, the warm/cool air and the many rock barriers that framed sections of the water surrounding the sand, giving me a mysterious, childlike feeling.

We had gone to see that movie the weekend after it came out. It was a wonderful, touching movie. I wouldn’t recommend it for very young kids, although it is based on the children’s story. I loved that book as a kid. We sang some of the tunes from the movie while we played amongst the rock barriers.

Up on top the rock barrier

Sunny Rocky view

It was a wonderful day. More days need to be like this one!

Tell me about a special day that you had recently. I would love to hear about it.

I don’t even know if anyone reads these posts, but if you do, I hope you enjoy it and I don’t bore you.

Have a wonderful rest of the evening and have a good week. I’ll be posting more soon.

It’s high time.  People around me have known for a while it’s high time, and just yesterday, as a gift, a family member has given me the opportunity to pick out a new one!!!

My Rogue RD-100... after which comes...?

Don’t get me wrong, I love the guitar I have, but it’s one of those “only a mother could love” kind of things.  It’s a black Rogue RD-100, and I’ve played it now for years.  Somewhere in the body, it’s developed a very undesirable buzz.  I had that assessed, and the guitar shop guy told me it would cost more to repair it than the worth of the guitar.  So be it.  I’ve kept on playing it anyway, knowing that I’ll never get rid of it, even once I replace it… my first guitar, you know?

Now what I’m eying is the Seagull / Godin guitars out of Montreal Canada.  I’ve heard they’re a tremendous bang for the buck.  I’ve gotten to play a few of them too, and they seem great… but here’s the catch.  I played them at a Godin-only dealership.  Then I went to a Guitar Center and tried playing some of those $2k or $3k guitars, and quite honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference.

Great, right?  Maybe, but maybe not.

I’ve heard teachers, friends, etc get all geeked out this guitar brand or that guitar brand, and so far, (at least on the acoustic side) I can’t tell the difference in any of them.  (Pretty much.  I can tell a $90 guitar from a $5k guitar, but those are the extremes)  Am I an idiot?  Am I missing some big secret?  Or is it something you’re supposed to learn after weeks and months of playing a set of guitars over and over?

If you had somewhere between $400 and $600, what kind of acoustic guitar would you buy?

We went back to my hometown today (I needed a haircut, and we were in the mood for some diner food). The weather was alternating between rainy, nor’easter-type weather and sunny. By the time we got up to the inlet, it was back to rainy. This gull seemed to love the weather.

Man and nature, getting along.

I am sure that there are at least three egrets in the picture. The others look like they could be seagulls.

The Egrets in the Shallows
21 September 2009
Ponquogue, Hampton Bays, NY

This image is less about the seagull and more about a fantastic capture of water crashing against the rocks!

"Surf's Up" (Seagull) Nikon D300, 550mm (200-400mm w/1.4x teleconverter), F/8, 1/1250s, ISO 400

Love that!

"Mine!" (Seagull) Nikon D300, 550mm (200-400mm w/1.4x teleconverter), F/8, 1/1000s, +0.3EV, ISO 400

Headed back to the beach today. I went earlier this time so the tides didn’t mess me up!

With only 45 minutes to shoot, I got right down to business and lugged my large lens over to the far side of the beach. MUCH chillier and windier today, but the gulls were out and about so it wasn’t for naught.

I knew immediately when I hit the shutter that I would love this shot and prayed it came out!

Hooray!

More gull shots to come, I’m sure!

 This weekend was perfect for getting those wonderful silhouette shots on the Virginia Beach shoreline. I was able to capture this young couple as the were making their way along the beach with the sunset in the background. Even though the weather is changing there are plenty of opportunities to get beautiful images for the willing to venture on location. If the weather is not good enough for you we can also do in studio work to capture the images you desire.

http://www.vbatoz.com    rwidgeon@vbatoz.com   (757) 621-8288

I realise I have been lacking in blogs recently. It wasn’t that I was lacking time, but rather that the Seagull was very “regular” and I struggled to find anything to blog about. It was very classical, and maybe not quite my thing, but still good fun to work on. As always I learned new things as I went, but found that the show was quite technically bare. Nothing went wrong, in fact I think everything went really well, but I don’t know if I came across many notable points for reflection.

I don’t think tech week got off to the best start. Monday and Tuesday were LX focus and plot. As TSM crew I found this long and tedious. Perhaps it was because I knew we had a long list of things to do, but we couldn’t do any of them because everything had to be done in silence, in the dark without disturbing anyone. I am happy to sit about and do nothing if there is nothing to do, but otherwise I want to be working away through the list. Anyway, by the time Tuesday afternoon came, I had visited the library and taken out some books to keep me occupied. As the week went on, it got better and better, and we all seemed to agree that Friday afternoon was a fantastic session and we managed to get almost everything in order by then ready for the first dress.

Opening night went really well, but I am also glad we had the dress in the afternoon to make sure we had it all sorted, especially after the changes made. Mostly I am impartial to the changes, but I am disappointed that the Kabukis were cut since we had worked really hard and I thought they looked pretty good.

I think, on the whole, the production was a success, but I found it quite deceiving. When you looked at the design/lighting/tech stuff/general show, it should have been a really straight forward fit-up and show in most aspects, but somehow even near the end of the tech week we were still encountering small problems to overcome and looking back, perhaps there were a few issues which would have been easier to resolve had a different approach been taken. Had it been a longer run I think we should have implemented some more permanent solutions for a few of the more time consuming tasks such as the velcro on the trellises which kept ripping off.

I really enjoyed working Automation and Flies since I felt more involved in the process. I know every job is important, but sometimes when I am the person on the deck tidying-up, coiling rope or holding a bit of wood while someone else drills a hole in it, I feel like a bit of a spare part. I tried to lend a hand with the tedious tasks where I could, but it was nice to get a change in responsibilities and I think it has helped me appreciate one of the most important and dangerous things about working off the deck (but especially on the fly floor) which is communication. While the show was simple, during the fit-up and strike I seemed to have a list of requests which people were adding to by the minute. They were manageable, but I often found myself having four conversations at once and trying to make it very clear which bar was going in, which one was going out and which one had now been clipped while also trying to keep tabs on the weight and positions of bars and lines. All this is made more difficult by other people working around you, chatting and calling to each other across the stage, grid or auditorium.

For anyone who has missed it, here are a few links related to The Seagull:

STV Part 1

STV Part 2

STV Part 3

The Seagull review by The Herald

All in all, The Seagull went well and I was happy with the work I did, but doubt it will make it into my five favourite shows. Next up is Panto which I am really looking forward to. I just have a good feeling that we will all be suitably challenged by the show, and with it being bigger and more complex I am sure there will be more chances for us to take different responsibilities onboard. It’s too early to tell for sure, but I think it might be a good choice for Scott and I to leave after fit-up and begin to work on War and Peace since it sounds like it will be a huge production, gives the first year crew more opportunities and responsibilities on Panto and also means we get the experience of doing two challenging fit-ups without having to endure all the performances of Panto!